


Unearthed

by mayachain



Series: birthday!verse [52]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Background Relationships, Dark Magic, Friendship, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Post-Canon, Post-War, Protective Slytherins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 17:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17812514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain
Summary: The war ended and Theo Nott rather unravelled.





	Unearthed

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [your path within the shards](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17714090) by [mayachain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain). 



> For once, no birthday.

The war ended and Theo rather unravelled. The Dark Lord expired in a flash of green light from his own wand and the world ended. Not that Theo had necessarily wanted the Dark Lord’s world. Nonetheless: It was his world, had been his world since before he’d been born, and it ended.

Theo spent two weeks in Azkaban. It wasn’t much, by comparison. It was less than what his father got, which was a kiss, and less than what some former students got who had been sympathisers or relatives or just plain Slytherins but hadn’t got a Dark Mark to show for it.

It was more than Draco Malfoy got, but even while Theo was at his angriest he could not blame Draco for it. Not when it was plain as day Draco’s connection to Longbottom, however _that_ had come to be, that had saved all the marked Slytherin students. Those that had still been students. Those that had lived.

Saved, for a given value of saved. Theo stumbled out of Azkaban into a world where he did not know his place. Millicent and Daphne were trying to rally everyone but Theo was not to be rallied. He went home.

He went home, to the place where his mother had been killed, where he’d been raised to be the Dark Lord’s youngest follower – although Enthwistle had been younger still. Where he’d been told every day how superior his blood was and how exalted his position as heir, but how his every independent thought was worthless. Studious, yes, being studious had been allowable, but innocuous questions had been constrained until there had no longer been any independent thoughts.

Draco had argued that Greg had never had an independent thought in his life. That wasn’t true for Theo. He’d used to have those. Now he was trying to have those again in his far-too-empty house.

Outside the world turned a new leaf after the stain the Dark Lord had left on it was gone, or at least dissipating. It was so bright that Theo could not cope. The darkness inside his house was comforting. A corset helping his composure when nothing else could. Impossibly tight. Unsafe, tempting, all he’d ever known.

He knew others worried for him. They seemed to have no hardship building new lives without the inclusion of one Theodore Nott, but Daphne, her sister Astoria, Millicent, Greg and surprisingly, Draco, wouldn’t leave him alone. Blaise tried, too. 

He was vaguely aware that Millicent had some master plan to rehabilitate the Slytherin name. She had a chance to succeed, as well, unmarked as she’d remained until the very end. She had unmoored herself from her parents. Goyle House was where she’d ended up, surprisingly. With Daphne.

Theo had the Dark Mark. He couldn’t escape it, even as it no longer served to chain or anchor him. Draco ought not to have been able to escape his, either; however, Draco was in a relationship with the Hero of Hogwarts and no, that moniker was not the sole prerogative of bloody Potter.

More than anything else, Theo needed to escape the Dark Mark’s stain. He knew that he never could. So he hid away from the world in a house full of memories and dark artefacts. Ghosts, malicious ones even if no one could see them. The magic in the walls anchored him (chained him) like the Dark Mark had been supposed to. It was better this way: After all, this darkness all came from the Notts and nowhere else.

He obsessed over research. Maybe at the beginning it had been about getting rid of the Mark to ensure that only the Nott would be left, whatever that would turn out to mean, but before he knew it everything was about knowledge. Knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Knowledge for reassurance. Once he knew enough Theo would finally be able to find his independent thought. He was the last Nott. He was going to need it.

Dark, So dark.

It was a corset. It was a crutch. It was the only thing that kept him alive. It was his life’s breath. It was strangling him.

The only times he ventured out of the house was when he had books to procure. He did not care what he had to do to go about it. Dark, grey, rarely ever light. If he had to use an Unforgivable to get what he needed then so be it.

So far, only Slytherins had noticed. So far, only Slytherins had approached him about it. Longbottom knew something, Theo was sure, but so far he had let Draco ‘deal’ with it. Daphne was teaching Potions at Hogwarts now, he was sure that helped, too.

He went to Goyle House on the promise of one of Millicent’s books. 

They didn’t let him leave.

Goyle House had used to be dark. Young Theo hadn’t been there often but he and Greg had played there a few times as children.

It wasn’t not dark, now.

It was an anchor, now.

Theo didn’t leave. The whole summer he was reading in the sun room in front of huge glass windows, and he didn’t leave. House elves were sent to Nott Manor to fetch anything he might need. Dark artefacts were not allowed. Goyle House had its own dark artefacts, but they responded to Greg. They were anchored.

Theodore was not anchored.

Draco and Longbottom turned up with a plant that reeked of magic that could be dark or light but most of all promoted _life._ It helped a little. Nott Manor was dark and reeked of death but Theo could touch this one living thing. It was supremely unbothered about the Dark Mark on his arm.

It helped his calm until it didn’t. Theo was at Goyle House and did his own research even as he helped Millicent with her political engineering project. And maybe that was where things went wrong. Because he had been calm, not anchored perhaps but held, as long as he’d done his own thing. Millicent’s project reminded him of the outside world. There existed a world outside of Goyle House, of Nott Manor, of both their houses. 

Outside existed a world that had ended.

No. Outside existed a world instead of the world that had ended.

Outside existed a world that was nothing like the world in which Theo had been taught to live. It was so bright. Theo’s supposed world was – had been? - full of darkness.

Once, Theo had been unsure if he even wanted that darkness.

Once, many forces had made sure he would not have such an independent thought any more.

It was dark. It was a corset. It was a noose.

Darkness.

Theo hadn’t fallen prey to accidental magic since he’d been five years old. His father had given him a practice wand and had told him to behave like a proper Nott now.

When the thought finally came, it exploded every scrap of wood and glass in Greg’s parlour.

 

.


End file.
